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Berni dropped her purse to the floor. “I’ll say. When Howard—”
Piper jumped up. “I have some calls to make.” She didn’t, but she was already depressed enough without having to hear about Howard Berkovitz’s low sperm count.
Berni waved her off.
Piper camped outside the coffee shop, sitting at one of two metal café tables designed for warmer days instead of the city’s typical November gloom. The low-hanging gray clouds obscured any possibility of sunshine. She wondered how long it took the average person to get over a broken heart. Maybe if she tripled that time, she’d have an idea of when she might return to normal again, because right now, she was stumbling through every day feeling as though she had jagged, broken pieces sticking out of her skin.
Her phone rang.
“Piper, it’s Annabelle Champion.”
Annabelle’s cheery voice made her feel marginally better. Annabelle chatted for a few minutes before she got to the point. “I’d like to meet with you about doing some work for me. The company I hired to do background checks has gotten lazy, and I want you to take over the job.”
A month ago, Piper would have been ecstatic, but all her edges had grown soft, as if her old self had reached its expiration date. Duke whispered in her ear. “It’s no business for a girl. You shoulda believed me.”
Duke was dead wrong. Her unhappiness had nothing to do with being female and everything to do with her mistaken belief that running Dove Investigations was all she wanted from life.
She rubbed her palm on her jeans. “Can I get back to you? I’m incredibly grateful, but I’m . . . rethinking a few things.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
Annabelle was so open, so nonjudgmental, that Piper nearly confided in her, but how could a happy woman with a successful business and a husband who loved her understand?
She fell back on a truthful but less revealing response. “It turns out that stakeouts bore me to tears, and I hate telling women their husbands are cheating on them.”
“Understandable,” Annabelle said.
“I need to reassess.”
“That’s good for all of us to do occasionally. Get rid of what doesn’t work and create something new out of what does.”
Great advice, except Piper no longer knew what did or didn’t work for her.
After their conversation, Piper went back inside only to have Berni shoo her away with the news that Willie was going to drive her home.
***
Piper had told him no. And no meant no, right? But Coop couldn’t sleep. Kept forgetting to eat. And he’d started staring longingly at the liquor bottles behind the bar. He’d been sure she’d finally pick up one of his phone calls or at least answer a text, but that wasn’t happening. He was no closer to speaking with her now than he’d been when she’d walked out of his hospital room one week and one day ago. He couldn’t take it any longer, and he drove to Piper’s old condo building.
On the way there, he kept remembering what he’d said to Jada about stalking, but trying to have a simple conversation with Piper against her will hardly constituted harassment, did it?
So maybe it was a gray area.
The guys who lived downstairs had buzzed him in before, but this time they didn’t respond, even though he saw movement through their front windows. Next, he tried Jennifer MacLeish but got no answer. He hit the button for Mrs. Berkovitz. “Who’s this?” she replied over the intercom.
“It’s Cooper Graham, Mrs. B. Can you let me in?”
“Cooper who?”
“Graham. Cooper Graham. Could you hit the buzzer so I can get in?”
“I would,” she said hesitantly, “but I . . . I hurt both my hands, and I can’t press the button.”
A flat-out lie, since she was already using the intercom.
“Try with your elbow,” he said with forced patience.
“My arthritis.”
